When Tom Hicks and George Gillett strode on to the Anfield pitch in February 2007 to announce their acquisition of Liverpool Football Club, they presented themselves as the guys to pump the club with finance, provide the wherewithal to build the long-mooted new stadium, and lift the club back to the pre-eminence it had lost in football's moneyed, Premier League era. All their talk was of cherishing Liverpool's heritage, of the Kop, name-checked repeatedly by Hicks in his Texan drawl, of a golden future to replicate the glorious past. Debts of £313m 18 months later, the club paying £36.5m interest to service them, auditors delivering grave warnings of "material uncertainty" about Liverpool's ability even to continue in business were, to quote a phrase, never in the brochure.

The accounts released on Thursday, covering the year to 31 July 2008 for Liverpool Football Club and Hicks' and Gillett's holding company, Kop Football – ultimately owned, naturally, in the low-tax US state of Delaware via the Cayman Islands – set this out in black and white. In part the figures, revealing a £42.6m loss made in a bumper year when the club turned over £164.2m, confirmed what we already knew. The North American pair borrowed the £185m to take over Liverpool and although they promised in those choreographed public appearances not to "do a Glazers", they have loaded the responsibility for paying those debts on to the club itself.

With £313m already spent of a £350m loan facility with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia few believe the new stadium will be built anytime soon, since that, too, has to be financed with borrowed money, currently projected at about £400m.

The stadium was first planned over a decade ago, when the cost was estimated at less than a quarter of that. The necessity then was to stop Manchester United, merrily slapping extra tiers on Old Trafford, stretching away financially. But controversies over the initial proposals, followed by an exhaustive planning process, a three-year search for a buyer, then inaction under Hicks and Gillett, have left Liverpool still at historic, 45,000-seat Anfield, and dramatically further in debt. During the same period, United have filled the Old Trafford corners to allow a 76,000 capacity, Arsenal moved to the 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium whose construction, in inner-city London, was more complex than anything Liverpool face, and Chelsea have been handed £700m to spend by Roman Abramovich.

New owners were sought for Liverpool because the chairman, David Moores, and chief executive, Rick Parry, believed they could not build the new stadium without a rich backer standing behind the club. Hicks and Gillett, however, have not delivered, releasing the briefest of statements last August that the new stadium would be "subject to delay", which they blamed on "global market conditions".

It was of course true that the banking system had collapsed, but the club was sold to Hicks and Gillett because they were supposed to have the muscle to build the stadium. There is no sign that they are any further forward now; one Liverpool source, asked about the project yesterday, said: "You can forget about that."

Liverpool city council, which has worked patiently with the club to produce regeneration plans for the Anfield area based around a new stadium, expressed frustration after the project was shelved last year, and there is widespread disillusion, from fans and Liverpool people, about the conduct of the owners.

Yet, despite KPMG's warning, the figures do not signal that Liverpool is in danger of imminent collapse. The £350m loan facility does fall for renewal next month, which is why KPMG identified it as "a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt upon [Liverpool's] ability to continue as a going concern". Hicks, however, is said to be "very relaxed" that Royal Bank of Scotland will extend the loan and that seems a reasonable assumption. Any customer which can pay £36.5m interest is good business, and it is difficult to envisage Liverpool, still generating so much income, being repossessed by the banks.

Hicks and Gillett have put money in, a significant difference from the Glazers, who have provided nothing for United to invest. The accounts show that £58m was loaned from the Cayman Islands holding company, which is understood to have funded player signings. Significant sums have been made available to Rafael Benítez under the new owners, including the totemic £26.5m arrival of Fernando Torres in July 2007, and during the year covered by these accounts, Benítez signed Andrea Dossena and the £20m Robbie Keane, who returned to Spurs for £12m six months later.

It is still part of Hicks and Gillett's plans to back Benítez. They can point to progress, with the improved squad having rampaged gleefully for much of last season, beating Manchester United 4–1 at Old Trafford, and finishing second, which will deliver the club more money from both the Premier League and Champions League distributions.

The club, however, will not generate enough, even in what is certain to have been a record year financially, to spend £20m on players as well as service the debt burden. So Hicks and Gillett will either have to borrow up to the full £350m, or find more cash themselves. They are said to be looking for new investment or to sell, but Hicks denies that, insisting he will hang on, and see Liverpool eventually into the Shangri-La of the new stadium.

While Chelsea have Abramovich reaching into his pockets again, and Manchester City were bought by an owner blessed with an outrageous fortune, Manchester United and Arsenal have major borrowings to service too. Liverpool may not fall too far behind just yet if Benítez can spend his budget wisely this summer and has luck with injuries next season.

It is, though, difficult to see where the club can get to under the current owners. Even if the £350m loan is continued there are questions over Hicks and Gillett's ability or willingness to fund the club further themselves. Two and a half years since the arrival of these "good" Americans, the new stadium remains on the drawing board, and Liverpool are servicing huge debts, including the £185m cost of being taken over by the pair in the first place. It is difficult to see quite how it all fits in with that rose-tinted commitment, made at the beginning, to cherish the heritage of Liverpool FC.